MobiFone said it had upgraded 1,000 3G BTS (base transceiver station) to raise the 3G speed to 42 Mbps in Hanoi, HCM City and Dong Nai province. It plans to put into operation another 1,000 BTS in Da Nang and Can Tho cities by the end of September, raising the total number of 3G 42Mbps BTS to 2,000.

The maximum speed on a BTS or a cell is 42Mbps. It can be accessed on a customer device when the entire BTS serves only one device.

The three network operators have all announced that the 3G access speed will be improved sixfold.  

Viettel had finished the trial period of providing 3G service with maximum speed of 42 Mbps, or six times higher than the speed to which it had committed when receiving a license.

VinaPhone was the first mobile network operator, which announced the six-time increase in 3G access speed. With 42 Mbps speed, it takes subscribers only one second to download an MP3 5Mb song.

VinaPhone has successfully tried the 3G speed upgrading at some BTS in Hanoi, Da Nang and HCM City. It is expected that the 3G access speed of 42 Mbps will be fulfilled at all 13,000 BTS nationwide.

The telco is reportedly working with some device suppliers to increase 3G speed further to 84 Mbps to continue leading the market as the network with the highest speed.

Mobile network operators all have confirmed that the number of 3G subscribers has soared since the beginning of the year, while voice calls and SMSes have been on the decrease.

Doan Quang Hoan, head of the Radio Frequency Department, said that Vietnam has been witnessing a gradual decrease in the number of 2G subscribers since 2011 and an increase of 3G subscribers.

Thieu Phuong Nam, Qualcomm’s Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia director, noted that the 3G has potential for telcos because of the modest number of subscribers.

Demand for 3G will be increasing rapidly thanks to the lowest 3G service fee in the world and the improving quality. The next step by telcos will be 3.5G.

In related news, MobiFone has successfully deployed 3.5G on 2G bandwidth, which has helped raise the coverage of the network’s BTS by 2.5 times and cut investment costs by 60 percent.

Network operators most commonly use 3G technology on the 1920-1980/2110-2170Mhz bandwidth.

However, the problem with high bandwidth is in transmission, which pushes investment costs up and makes it difficult to develop services in remote areas.

Vietnam Net